75? Really???

Well, here we go.

I was at Target the other day with my kids. We most always peruse the dollar bins at the front of the store and find great stuff: little containers for organizing around the house, party favors for upcoming birthdays, Diet Coke themed coasters/ball point pens and other cool items. Anyway, I noticed some craft supplies, specifically pompoms and googly eyes. Now for most kids, those are the makings for BIG FUN! So I investigate a bit further while the kids are checking out some other things. Then it hits me--the package of googly eyes says, are you ready for it...yep, you guessed it...in small print 'contains 75 pieces.' FOR REAL...I am not making this up!! So I decide to do a little math tutoring on the fly. (I told you I homeschool and this is one of the benefits, in my opinion.)

I say to the kids, "Hey, would these be good to have around for projects?"

They come peek into the bin and say, "Ummmmmmm, maybe."

Ha! I've got 'em hooked now. "Take a closer look at the googly eyes and tell me how many animals we could make from one package." It takes a minute, but then the smile spreads across my oldest's face as he realizes that the package contains an odd number of googly eyes. Absolutely priceless and better yet, FREE entertainment. So, this, naturally, well naturally in our family anyway, degenerates into a discussion about how we could make 75 Cyclops...Cyclopses?...Cyclopes? (Even after studying Greek and Latin in college, I cannot help them determine the plural form of Cyclops, but I can't help being pleased that they remember the story of the mythical creature with only one eye from our studies last year.)

This is the kind of stuff that just boggles my mind. Not that this is earth shattering, but, seriously, 75 googly eyes in a package? It just makes me wonder if the production cost is such that 100 googly eyes per pack would run the company out of business? And if that is, in fact, the case, did they do ANY market research? I'll admit I'm a sucker for the dollar bins, but I bet I'm not the only soul who would have paid $1 for a package of 50 googly eyes though that would have meant only 50 Cyclopes(yep, that's the plural form...I looked it up) creations....hmmmm, perhaps I should go back to Target...